Hi. There's quite a few people that have asked if they could have a closer look at the Uh Power Supply board from Circuit Labs in New Zealand A closeup what the quality is like and how does it compare with one of these um It Studio Boards from China Well, let's take a look at it. and here are the Circuit Lab Boards from Uh Circuit Labs in New Zealand also known as PCB Zone at PCB Zone H.net The reason they have two companies is that Circuit Labs do the high volume, professional uh type production uh boards whereas Pcb's own just specializ in just the one-off hobbyist. Prototype Thing: it's the same company, same, uh, same manufacturing thing.

It's just that their processes are slightly different for the Um for the Prototype boards and they actually, uh, penalized it for me I didn't ask them to do that um which is uh, great and they actually gave me four boards on two separate panels that's not quite normal. uh, what? they will, um, give you they for their prototype Service: Normally they would only give you the one board, but they also do manufacture a spare panel. Um, so uh Richard there has told me that they will actually throw in um, usually. um, not in all cases.

but most of the time they'll throw in that spare panel as well. So you can expect to get uh two boards manufactured. Uh, now these are the Ited studio ones from Uh China and uh, the Uh. Normally you would get five of them, but uh I ended up they sent me a spare one.

So I ended up getting uh six of these boards for pretty much the uh, same uh cost. uh PCB Zone I think for this board was about uh 9 uh do or thereabouts plus postage which I think is uh 25 Australian uh dollars or New Zealand dollars or something like that and uh, these uh ones from it Studios were $85 I think uh including postage to Australia But the big thing is these things took from it Studios took five weeks almost I think five weeks to get here. Absolutely insane. Um, most of that.

Most of the issue with that was with the Uh postage system from Hong Kong So that five weeks? that's ah, it's just hopeless. It kills all your enthusiasm for your project. As you can see, it was the original rev a board by the time I got the damn things I'd gone on revb and so I didn't end up using these. These are just scrap hopeless whereas the Um Circuit labs they claim to do uh, a 3 to six day turnaround.

but uh, if you're following my tweets, um, you'll know that I actually got them in like 2 days. It was insane. and yes, they are actually made in the plant in New Zealand they're not outsourced to China Beauty Now as I said, they did actually panelize it for me. They put the tooling holes down here as you've seen in my Uh Dfm tutorials.

They put the fiducial marks on there top and bottom and they gave me uh, red solder mask. uh normally I I asked for red but their normal prototype. service is only green. uh so just like the It studio ones I'm not sure if it'll be a similar finish, but you you could.

You could expect a um, similar green finish to the It studio ones and as you can see routed around and they've uh, left the little uh tab there to connect the board in four places. So to snap out your board, all you do is get in here with your side Cutters with the flat part against the board over there and just snip that out like that. and if you go around the board we'll do that all the way around in four places and we'll snip that board out. Oh there we go and it just punches out like that, it just drops out and Bingo and it's uh, not bad, uh at all.

It's the the bit that's actually left is is you know it's not too bad. You can easily sort of uh, snip off that or file it down or something if you really want a nice clean finished Edge on your board. And here's the two boards side by side and we'll take a closer look at them. But one of the really annoying things with the It studio board, they've put this file number up the top here I Hate it when PCB manufacturing companies, you know, add extra stuff to your silk screen PCB Cart did it for ages until I complained so much I think they finally added it to their uh cart where you can specifically specify don't add any garbage to my silk screen and that's very important if you using it like a front panel like that.

I've had boards that I've that were clearly like designed as a front panel like this microcurrent on my microw watch and then they've plastered their stupid ID code all over the front of the board. Crazy! I hate it when they do that. Stop it now. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to show you this well on video, but I'll try the circuit Labs boards are a silver uh finish that.

um, so they actually the pads are all um, actually silver. They are not gold and they're not uh, hot air leveled? uh, solder whereas the It studio ones are just hot air leveled, uh, solder? That's all they are. and I do really like the silver finish on the pads and usually from companies like PCB cart. you can actually specify uh that you want a silver finish.

um, but by um, just standard. The Uh circuit Labs 1 comes with silver finish and the it doesn't Now hopefully you can see the difference there between the silver finish on those pads and the hot air level, soldered finish and the silver one. Just very nice. and there's just another angle of that with uh, different light.

so hopefully you can see the difference in the Finish there. And yes, that is a platypus. Why? why not? Now this is the best zoom that my Uh Canon Hfg10 camera can actually. uh, do it's not designed for Real uh macro uh.

closeups here, but hopefully you can see the difference. Slight difference in the silk screen quality. The Um circuit Labs New Zealand one is is much sharper in my opinion with uh better contrast against the Um bare. uh, sold a mask like that with no copper underneath, but really, there's not a huge amount in that you know the the it.

Studio One is the solder mask. No problem whatsoever. I Just think the circuit Labs one little bit. Superior and if we look at the inverse solder mask there, uh, the circuit Labs one Very sharp indeed, whereas has the exact same one on the uh, well, slightly.

There has a few less tracks going underneath it, but it's just not quite as sharp on the it Studios one. And as for the bottom of the board, they both followed my instructions. uh, properly. The solder mask is removed from the top part up here and yeah, know, really? are neither of them.

uh, goofed up anything. They've both got the Uh slots over here. Correct. Some manufacturers can actually, uh, screw up those sort of slots.

Just something to be aware of. Um, but yeah, they've both done a pretty reasonable job of uh manufacturing to my Uh Gerber specifications because it Studios as you know, I've done a whole video on that. they have screwed up uh things before. Now here's an interesting uh comparison.

This is my microcurrent board from uh PCB Cart in China on the left there. that's my current current production uh board and I'm going to actually get it uh, now manufactured by Circuit Labs in New Zealand to keep the content uh, local. So um, I'm going to have this sort of uh, red, um, sort of like a duller, sort of more metallic. You can see the copper uh through it as opposed to the very bright uh red, um uh.

solder mask. uh, it's almost orange. You could say It's probably hard to get on camera to get the color balance and things like that, right? Um, but there is quite a dramatic uh difference in the color. So my new microcurrent WS are going to look at something like this with the red solder mask um with the silk screen over the uh top.

The silk screen is probably not going to be as um bright and actually pronounced as the uh PCB cart ones, but it's going to have a different look and feel. And if you're doing uh PCB uh front panels like this for your for your projects or whatever, you have to take this into account. Not all manufacturers are going to have the same uh type and brand of solder mask, the same processors, the same finish of silk screen, and all that sort of stuff so it can vary uh, fairly dramatically like both Uh companies. I I Just ordered red uh, sold a mask in quote marks and and there is, uh, a fair bit of difference between their red solder mask finishes.

I don't know if I have a preference I think I'm going to like this new uh, this new metallic look I'm going to have on my microcurrents anyway. um I should have those in uh, three or 4 days so we'll find out then another angle to that if you can possibly see the difference and another angle trying to get some M light to actually Shine off this and this is really quite a uh, a shiny um finish to it. You can sort of see the metallic uh, copper underneath whereas uh, the PCB cart one really sort of hides it and just gives you a sort of a nice uh, you know, sort of a duller m that um type finish. Now please excuse the crudity of what I'm uh, shooting here.

I'm using my little uh, compact camera handheld through my microscope here and I've got a ruler uh there which has um, got 10 th uh increments on it and these tracks are supposed to be 10 th um but this is the It Studios board. and I reckon that they have um overed those uh tracks going in there. It looks like there's definite overetching there. like down to 7 or 8 mil or something like that.

and on the circuit Labs Board: as you can see I reckon that's pretty darn spot on to the 10 thou uh track that I actually had so there doesn't look to be any over etching there. it looks spoton. I Love it. and if you take a look down inside one of the Uh plated through pads on the Uh circuit Labs board, it looks very clean I like it and the same pad on the ice teed Studios Board: not so good.

not so clean. maybe that's the um uh soldo finish instead of the silver finish perhaps. And on the circuit Labs board, let's take a look at the uh, whole registration, uh, top and bottom. this is the bottom side of the board and that's probably the worst case.

Via I can find. uh, they're generally, uh, better than that and pretty close to uh, spot on. There's certainly no breakouts, so let's have a look at the top side with the same there. and there's the top side of the same Via and uh, once again, no breakout.

slight, uh, misalignment. but uh, no big deal for such a small Um hole and a small annulus. And there's the It Studios board. Uh, pretty close to spot on, but I've had other It studio boards that aren't um, they were borderline breakout so I don't know if it's a you know pot like manufacturing variability, whatever.

but this particular board is pretty darn good. and there's the other side also spot on. So this particular Board Registration is excellent. and if we take a look at the silk screen up up close, aha no wonder it doesn't look as sharp.

Look at that. you can see the lines. it's it's pretty awful. I mean you know it's it's okay for a prototype uh board for you know the price is is still good, but let's compare it to the Uh New Zealand circuit Labs board I Think you'll see a dramatic difference and look at that.

The difference is dramatic. There are like the edges are super smooth and clean. I Love it. It's almost as if they've You know they? well, they haven't.

Well I don't know if they're using a dot matrix. um, kind of uh process or not. it doesn't appear like it appears like it's a totally different uh, silk screening process by Silk screening I mean you know the generic term silk screening. There's a few ways to actually uh, do it on Pcbs.

but yeah, the circuit Labs one. much sharper, brilliant, and just as a comparison, here's my PCB Cart board also from China this is my micro current board. Pretty same, uh, same size, uh sort of font, same type. you can see the dot matrix line effect there on this as well.

So the Uh circuit Labs New Zealand one um should be a much better uh silk screen quality for my production. uh rev 3 micro current boards and solder mask alignment on the It studio board. Not that great, but uh yeah. and the um solder mask? uh, expansion.

They haven't uh, expanded that and they haven't broken it between the pads and the circuit. Labs board alignment Not that, uh, great either. Not spot on, but still acceptable. It's not covering the pad or anything like that and interestingly, the holes seem to be slightly bit bigger on the Uh circuit Labs board than on the it Studios board.

I'm not sure if they've drilled them out slightly more than the It boards or what, but anyway, there is no uh breakout there, so that's fine. So there you go. That's just a general comparison between a a New Zealand uh made board and a china made board and I really much prefer the New Zealand circuit Labs board. It is much nicer and I got it in a couple of days.

Huge difference compared to five wigs for it Studios But you know it, studios are a bit, uh, cheaper as you'd expect coming from China Who knows, um, how much they pay their workers there whereas I'm sure in New Zealand they pay them a decent wage and it's not China which is great. So yeah better. I guess value prototypes at it Studios but not if you want want to wait 5 weeks. so I think I'm going to get um all my prototypes uh made from uh circuit Labs Now I Really am quite impressed by them and for some reason the prices were significantly different at PCB Cart in fact hugely different between the loose board like this which is how I normally get it actually produced and the panelized version which you saw in the previous video.

The price difference um, the panel version even when you take into account the not you divide by 10 boards per panel and everything. the price per board for the panel version from PCB cart was like uh 2 and 1 half times the cost of the loose PCB so a huge price premium. So if you're just order if I was just ordering this one board from Uh circuit uh labs in New Zealand then um compared to PCB cart in China it would actually be about three and a half maybe uh, four times the cost for a loose board. but when it's panelized and you get the quote from PCB uh card in China compared to Circuit Labs who don't um appear to charge any different between the individual board and the panelized board in terms of a per price uh unit then um, it comes out to you know they're only about 60 to 70% more for the New Zealand Board which might sound like a M a lot, but in the scheme of things, it's not.

uh, much difference at all I Think it's a no-brainer I'm going from New Zealand Thank you very much See you China Yeah.